Three North American Ice Falls

Three new ice fall cases took place across North America during October 2018. As I mentioned in an earlier post, mysterious Ice Falls are a classic Fortean phenomena.

The accepted scientific consensus is that the ice builds-up on aircraft wings and detaches as the plane enters warmer air during descent. In some cases the ice is blue-coloured or stinks, suggestive of a leak from an aircraft’s potable water system. These new reports support the case for aircraft as likely culprits, as two are clearly linked to flight paths into major metropolitan airports.

The first report took place on Sunday, 7 October in Liberty Township, Indiana. Resident Dennis Nover was walking his dogs at around 6pm when he heard “a whoosh and a thud”.

“I just thought it was the wind in the or trees.” he told the Chesterton Tribune. “If that thing had hit me, it would have taken my head off.”

The impact even appeared to shake his neighbours house. He then found 30 feet away on his on his neighbours driveway a 15-20 pound block of clear ice in a crater more than a foot deep and two feet wide.

“My dogs started barking at it,” Nover told the paper.

Never took samples of the ice to Valparaiso University’s Department of Meteorology and to the Porter County Health Department. Neither organisation responded to the Cropster’s emails requesting information on their analysis of the ice.

There was no mention about any observed aircraft in the story. Liberty Township is over 70 miles from Chicago’s O’Hare International airport, but that doesn’t necessarily exclude it from being under a flight path.

Two days later and over 2,000 miles to the west, Eastvale California resident Edward Briseno was hosting a birthday party in his house when a large block of ice hit his driveway, the impact leaving a 30 foot crack in the cement. A retired pilot told CBS that Eastvale is located on the descent flight path for Los Angeles International airport.

Our final October case comes from Vancouver Island, Canada. On 20 October at around 6.45 am, Peter Marshall of Rumming Road, Lantzville heard a loud noise and upon investigating discovered several large chunks of ice had struck his truck causing some serious damage. Other pieces of ice were scattered around nearby. Transport Canada was investigating.

I had a chat with Peter earlier this month. Peter told me that planes often fly over his property as they descend into Vancouver International. A scan of a Vancouver aircraft noise tracking website showed that a descending plane was close to Lanztville at almost the exact time Peter said the ice fell.

Peter was also kind enough to share some his photos of the damage caused by the falling ice. Copyright remains with Peter Marshall.

I find it interesting that so many reports appear in North America. It’s probably a function of the volume of aircraft that fly across the continent. Meteorological conditions may also play a part.